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[Narration by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire]
“You broke what?”I have faced many terrors in my time and indeed escaped from the very jaws of death. But at this precise moment in time I really wished that I was the angel whose middle name I bore, so that I could have transported myself to another dimension. That might just be far enough given our landlady's current expression.“The bed”, I said, staring hard at the floor. “I am sorry. I will of course pay for a new one.”“That one was new!” Mrs. Singer snapped, while her husband stared curiously at me from beneath his beard. I was sure that Mrs. Lindberg was trying not to snigger but she was failing by a long chalk. “Start of last year. That means it only lasted nineteen months!”Her husband cursed under his breath, then reddened.“Sorry”, he said. “Just be a bit more careful”, Mrs. Singer sighed. “I mean we know.... well, we know. But fcarpenters round here will start to talk.”I apologized again and made as quick an exit as I could manage. I was halfway up the stairs when I remembered that I would have to ask which carpenter she wanted or if she even had a preference, so went back down again. I was just about to knock when I heard them talking.“Shameful, I call it”, Mrs. Lindberg said. “I mean, barely a year and a half!”I frowned. I had had no idea that she had felt that was about John and I.“The way they keep at it I'm amazed it lasted that long”, Mr. Singer said disapprovingly. “Why couldn't they just show a bit of restraint?”What? Him too?There was the clink of coins.“Suits me fine”, Mrs. Singer said. “I get a brand-new piece of furniture as I was only a month out. I thought you might win, husband mine, but when they came back from the opera last night I knew from the looks on their faces that my luck might be in.”They had been betting on me and John having sex? That was just..... Were we really that predictable?
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Although my beloved John was not fond of new technology he had decided to follow Mr. Lindberg's example and purchase one of those new phonographs. The music it yielded was of only mediocre quality but I supposed that like all such things it would improve with time. I enjoyed classical music in particular, while John liked more contemporary fare. We both enjoyed the new 'British opera' then in vogue, when instead of some overly large woman belting out how miserable she was in Italian for six hours at an end, a British baritone or bass expounded the classics in a language that we could actually understand.Unfortunately the night before had not been one such experience. The reader may recall Mr. Jack Rhodes, the unfortunate theatre-manager whose horrendous Victorian melodrama had resulted in someone getting killed (not directly as a result of the play at the time though that would have been quite understandable given how awful it had been). Mr. Rhodes had since moved on to a larger theatre and last night had been the first major production that he had been solely responsible for. As John's friend Sir Peter Greenwood had gone along we had felt obliged to offer our support too, for which generosity we were subject to some woman who was in a dress at least two sizes too small and half-missing, and apparently in some pain to boot. I had sworn that I had caught the chandeliers shaking at one point but fortunately we had made it through the performance and even better, the audience and the critics had liked it. It takes all sorts, I suppose. On the plus side we had had a private box in the dark.... well, waste not, want not. We had returned to Baker Street musing on opera and the like, and John had said that there would be no way that he could ever reach the notes that that Amazon had achieved. I had of course accepted that as a personal challenge and had spent the next hour and half trying to 'help' him.Hence, one broken bed.
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I was sure that neither Mrs. Singer nor her daughter would have conveyed what had happened to their serving staff, but when Molly showed up a young gentleman the following afternoon she definitely tittered before leaving us, failing miserably in her attempt to cover it with a cough. Was nothing sacred these days?Our visitor was a young fellow of about twenty years of age and stared at us as if he expected us to read his mind about why he was here. I sighed. After the dire caterwauling of last night I was now in for one of Those Interviews.“The doctor often writes wonderfully about my detective skills”, I said. “but when a loader from the West India Docks takes advantage of a trip to Paddington Station to call on my services and says precisely nothing, then even my talents are somewhat strained.”The young fellow blinked at us in surprise. He was tall, blond and wiry to the point of being able to work part-time as a lamp-post, but he had an honest look about him even if he was very clearly worried about something.“How did you know that, sir?” he asked quietly. His voice ill-fitted his frame, soft and almost broken. “Your boots.”He looked down at his footwear in surprise, then back at me.“The West India Docks is the primary loading point for ships on the herb and spices trade”, I said, “and there are traces of several quite unusual examples of both caught in the laces of your footwear. There is also some fine soot, of the sort that only locomotives from the Great Western Railway uses. You were therefore sent to their station of Paddington on some errand, and decided to use the opportunity to call in on us as we are not too far out of your way.”The young fellow nodded.“Mr. Binks had a special order for a friend of his up in Worcester”, he said. “And you're right sir, I do work down the docks. But that's not why I'm here. It's... kind of strange.”We both looked at him. “Strange how, precisely?” I asked.He looked even more nervous than when he had arrived, and I half wondered if he would try to make a run for the door. Fortunately John very sensibly offered him a glass of beer which I had not even seen him pour and the fellow downed it almost in one go.“It's Fred the taverner, sir”, he said. “He's stopped singing.”
What?
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This was after all London, and I was never so foolish as to think that I had seen and heard it all. But of all the strange things that people sat in that chair had come out with in my time, this ranked right up there. John and I both stared at our visitor, but it seemed that that was pretty much it.“You are concerned because an innkeeper in the Docks has stopped singing?” I asked. It sounded even weirder when I said it. The young fellow sighed.“There's three of us who drink in the snug down at the 'Black Boy', a pub in St. George”, he said. “Fred runs a tight place; there are a few pubs closer but they can get rowdy some evenings and the landlords there don't care what happens or how drunk people get as long as the money keeps coming in. Everyone knows when Fred says no more he means it.”“And now he has stopped singing?” I said, wondering for that matter why someone in such a profession might be singing in the first place. “You are concerned that there is some reason for this?”“Biff and Ben both said it was a dumb idea coming to you with this”, our visitor said, “but my lady-friend Geraldine says some of your stories start with something really small and then become much bigger.”I forbore from pointing out that this happened in only a small majority of cases and the vast number of investigations which started out as something small most often became even smaller and finally fizzled out into nothingness. John never put those forward to be published because no-one would care for them, and I could see from my friend's expression that he was thinking much the same as I was.“This may or may not be something”, I said, “but let us see what we can make of it from what you know of the matter. Molly introduced you as Mr. Starling so may we have your Christian name to start with, please?”“Albert, sir.”“What is this innkeeper's full name?” I asked.“On the sign over the door he is Mr. Fred Bloggs”, Mr. Starling said. “I think that's his name.”This matter was getting stranger by the minute.“You are not even sure of his name?” John asked increduously.“He came over from Italy some years back”, Mr. Starling said. “I think Biff said his name then was Biaggi or some such; we don't rightly know what his first name was except that it had to have started with an 'F' because he had an antique clock presented to him when he left and it had his initials on it. They can't have changed.”“So Mr. Fred Bloggs has stopped singing”, I said.“Pity he had not given that woman last night some advice!” John muttered unhelpfully. I shook my head at him, right as he undoubtedly was.“Have there been any other changes in Mr. Bloggs' behaviour as of late?” I asked.Our visitor scratched his head.“A couple, I suppose”, he said. “Biff and Ben think it has something to do with that oily Mr. Hatherden, who started drinking in the pub about the time.”“Do you know anything about this gentleman?” I asked.“Only that he doesn't fit in round our way”, Mr. Starling said. “He may be foreign; he looks it but I've never heard him speak so I can't say. He just sits there and looks miserable all the time.”“He is there every night?” I asked. Our visitor shook his head.“I suppose that's a bit odd”, he conceded. “He'll miss the odd evening here and there but never the same ones; it'll be a Wednesday one week then a Thursday the next. And he comes in at different times, though he nearly always stays till closing. Always alone as well.”“Most interesting”, I said. “You may well be right, Mr. Starling, in linking this person to your innkeeper's sudden silence. Tell me by the way; did he gradually stop singing or did it happen suddenly?”“All of a sudden, sir”, our visitor said firmly. “It was Biff's birthday and we expected him to be behind the bar and singing to himself when he was not busy. Wonderful deep voice he had. But that was the first day he kept silent.”“And what is the other change in your innkeeper?” I asked. Our visitor hesitated.“I think he might have come into some money, sir”, he said. “Poor Mrs. Cutter, her Alf died when his ship went down and she was set to be thrown out of her house, but Fred said he would sort things out for her. He must've paid her rent for a while until she could get another job to make ends meet. But I don't see how that would make him sad, let alone stop singing.”I looked at our visitor sharply.“You did not mention that this Mr. Bloggs was actually sad”, I said accusingly. “He only sang to himself really, when he was taking a break, sirs”, Mr. Starling said. “He was never a barrel of laughs but he seemed happy enough. But yes, he has been looking down since he went quiet.”I thought for a moment.“This is curious indeed”, I said. “It may be something or it may be nothing. I am inclined to look into this matter further, Mr. Starling, and if you give the doctor your address we shall send any findings we make to you there. Do that and the doctor will take you downstairs where he will secure you a cab back to the docks.”“Sir, I....”“I am sure that your Mr. Binks will know exactly how long your journey to and from Paddington should have taken”, I said, “and while the city's roads are ever more crowded there is no easy railway route across the city. We cannot have him angry with you and thereby endangering your employment. Thank you for bringing me this matter. Doctor, be sure to ask the cab-driver to drop Mr. Starling off out of sight of his place of employment.”
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----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
John came back up after having shown our visitor off.“Are you starting on this straight away?” he asked.“I can hardly do that”, I said reprovingly.“Oh Why not?”“Two reasons”, I said. “Firstly I shall need to have this Mr. Hatherden followed to see what his role in all this is. And secondly, we shall have visitors today.”“How do you know that?” he asked, surprised.“People in to see if the bed can be repaired?” I said, quirking an eyebrow at him.He blushed most deliciously. Those visitors were really untimely, but if they came early enough then perhaps later. After all we would have to test any repairs.Thoroughly!
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Unfortunately the bed in my room was not salvageable so the remains had to be carried away (and I really wished that the average British workman could refrain from smirking so much; they were as bad as the help!). Fortunately we still had the bed in John's room although that was smaller, and we decided that we might as well order a new emperor-sized bed (also reinforced) for his room as well. It struck me as he went out to post a letter that we were in effect buying furniture for someone else's property but I still regarded 221B very much as our home and hoped it would remain so for years to come.All right, and there was that rifle downstairs to think of. We had broken Mrs. Singer's property after all!
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Miss Charlotta Bradbury called round in person two days later to let us know of her agents' success in following the mysterious Mr. Hatherden. He had not been in the evening of the day that Mr. Starling had brought us the case but he had called the one after that and had successfully been 'tailed'.“And did you find one for me this time!” Miss Bradbury said sitting down and reaching for the jam cream finger that I had assured was on her side of the cake tray. John would doubtless have pouted but I had promised him a whole apple-pie to himself later so he did not.“Mr. Hatherden?” I asked.“Is a dark horse and then some!” she said. “My agent followed him when he left the 'Black Boy' and he went up to the main road that runs not far to the north of the place. There he caught a cab and she nearly lost him but she caught him up eventually – in Mayfair of all places!”We both stared at her in surprise.“What is a gentleman who can afford a house in Mayfair doing drinking down at a dockside tavern?” John asked. “Unless he is the last of the great English eccentrics.”“Far from it”, she said. “I got the information last night and first thing this morning started making inquiries. There is a lot more to your Mr. Hatherden than first appeared, starting with the fact that he is not Mr. Hatherden.”“Who is he?” I asked.“His real name is Mr. Jarvis Brook!”She said that triumphantly as if we should have known that name at once. We just stared at her and she sighed, then pointed over to the recently-acquired phonograph.“He owns the London Phonographical Recording Company”, she said. “Not only that, he has signed several famous singers up to make recordings for him.”My eyebrows shot up. Now I saw it.“Do you have details of these contracts?” I asked.She grinned and handed over a slim brown folder.“The singers each get a basic lump sum, a second payment for each recording they make and a third if sales reach a certain level”, she said. “No wonder he can afford a place in Mayfair when all the snooty folk live.”“Does Mr. William Middleton not have a house in Mayfair?” I smiled.“So I know of what I speak”, she smiled. “I nearly managed to give one of the locals a heart-attack the last time I wore the boiler-suit out while 'visiting my employer'!”She really was terrible. And worst of all she had glanced knowingly at my bedroom door before smirking quite shamelessly. Honestly, was nothing secret these days?“I suppose that they do not make things like they used to”, she smiled.Apparently nothing was.
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Miss Bradbury's file on Mr. Brook was as comprehensive as I had expected. Although I really wondered how she knew about those two distinctive moles on his upper left thigh. Perhaps in this case ignorance was bliss!To bring this case to a conclusion I would need some assistance from our friend Mr. Godfreyson, owner of the molly-house empire. This I always found amusing, for although John and Sweyn got on well enough I knew that the love of my life distrusted Sweyn's deputy Lowen who John suspected of lusting after me. The young was now in a relationship with Philip from the house after I had helped the latter with his divorce from a particularly unpleasant wife, but I may have neglected to mention that detail to my beloved. His visits always made John rabidly jealous and he became much more aggressive in his love-making. It was not John's lucky day because Sweyn was out of town and it was his who duly came over. The love of my life only narrowly stopped short of growling at our visitor who was perfectly amenable to my request even if he knew full well that his leering only made a certain English city doctor even more not-jealous.“He does not seem to have aged at all in what must be two decades since we met him”, I observed, 'missing' someone grinding their teeth at our visitor's departure.“Forever young and beautiful”, John said not at all sourly. “Yes, it must be wonderful to still have all that stamina”, I mused. “Especially looking back as we both approach a half-century.”He scowled at me for that. Despite being by far the more handsome of us John had always been uncertain about his appearance, and I knew that he secretly loathed the fact that he was two and a half years older than me. And there was the utterly impossible fear of his, especially when faced with someone as attractive as the Cornishman, that I might 'trade him in' for a younger model. I would sooner 'trade in' my right arm!“Feeling the need to mark your claim?” I teased.He growled at me unhappily.“You know your bed is broken and mine is too small for that sort of thing!” he scowled.I smirked as I stood up and stared to disrobe.“Who says that we need a bed?” I said as I walked towards his room.That happy whining really was very pleasurable – but I was sure that I could pull even better noises out of him soon enough!
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I did! It was worth a little rug-burn!
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Two days later 221B had a visitor. Mr. Jarvis Brook was about fifty years of age, balding and with a unpleasant sneer which did nothing for his already poor looks. His clothes however were of the highest quality. I was not the least bit surprised.“You asked to see me, Mr. Holmes”, the fellow said, looking disfavourably around our main room. “Pray keep it brief. I am a busy man.”“Thank you for sparing me some of your precious time”, I said. “I am undertaking an investigation just now and I believe that you may be of some assistance in it.”“I am sure I cannot”, he said confidently. “Where is this doctor friend of yours? Did I not read that he is always there in your so-called adventures?”My already low opinion of this fellow was sinking further by the minute.“The doctor is treating a patient in his room”, I said. “A rather delicate matter; the gentleman did not wish him to come to his house for some reason. Back to the matter at hand; I am investigating an East End taverner called Mr. Frederick Bloggs.”He was not that good. There was a definite flicker of unease before he rallied.“Should that name be known to me?” he inquired haughtily.“It should be known to hundreds of people”, I said. “However the Great British public has certain expectations if often for poor reasons; for example thanks to the doctor's illustrator many apparently think that I should be undertaking my job while wearing headwear more suited to hunting deer and stags. Similarly they seem to expect all opera singers to come from Italy. I do not know why, but that is the way of the world just now.”He was now definitely uneasy. He stared at me in silence.“I know all”, I said firmly. “I have copies of the contracts you have signed with the five people who have made recordings for your company. Four of those contracts are mean-spirited enough and I shall be speaking to each of those people and counselling legal action on their parts. But the fifth is in a class of its own. The public who pay their hard-earned pennies thinking that 'Signor Federico Biaggi' will benefit from their largesse are so very wrong. Nearly all the money goes into your pocket and hardly any to the owner of the 'Black Boy' in St. George-in-the-East, one Mr. Frederick Bloggs.”“I have done nothing illegal”, Mr. Brook said haughtily. “That was the fellow's name before he came to this country and he signed that contract of his own free will. If that is all then I am leaving.”“You will pay Mr. Bloggs back-pay for the time you have stolen from him”, I said.“And how are you going to make me do that, sir?” he sneered.I smiled and stood up, then walked over to John's door and knocked on it. Seconds later he came through it. He was not alone; with him was Terry, one of the molly-house boys. He was a tall fellow of about thirty years of age with slicked-back black hair, and had a surprised look on his handsome face.“Louis! What are you doing here?”Mr. Brook spluttered in shock.“Who the blazes are you?” he gasped.The tall fellow chuckled.“Oh come on!” he smiled. “I think we have both seen enough of each other for there to be nothing between us, eh? You still got those penny-farthing marks on your thighs?”“You know this person?” John asked, feigning surprise.“One of the house's best customers”, his companion grinned. “Always asks for me; a bit kinky in some of his requirements maybe....”“This is an outrage!”“Well, if you are denying this fellow's assertions there is an easy way to prove it”, I said calmly. “Let us see if you do have those marks.”Our unpleasant visitor gasped for breath, and staggered back into his chair. I handed him a folded piece of paper.“You may have to mortgage your expensive property”, I said, “but given that it was purchased through transactions which were immoral if not illegal that is fair enough. This is the sum that you will pay to Mr. Bloggs before the day is out. And your other four clients will almost certainly be seeking redress so you will need the money. If however you choose not to do this, then I can guarantee that all London will know of your true nature – starting with your neighbours!”He glared at me in utter hatred but he knew that he had lost. He rose slowly to his feet and left.
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“I still do not understand why the taverner stopped singing, though”, John said later after we had opened the windows to air the room of its recent foul presence. Terry had left suitably rewarded for his time and most definitely minus one unpleasant client.“Mr. Brook did not want anything to stop the money rolling in”, I said. “Part of the contract was that the innkeeper had to refrain from straining his voice outside the recording studio. Hence the sudden silence which, ironically, was to prove the villain's undoing. A case of something quite literally out of nothing!”
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Postscriptum: All too predictably Mr. Brook ran true to form in that he hurried back to Mayfair, made an emergency sale of his property, removed all his money from the bank and secured a passage to the Cape Colony on the next ship out of the docks. I really wish I could have been there when he opened his case some time into the voyage and discovered that it had been switched before his ship had left harbour! His money was distributed mostly to Mr. Bloggs; his son Mr. James Brook stepped up to take over the company and immediately changed his deals with the four other singers so that they could regain what had been effectively stolen from them over time.
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